and then, beyond the vacant shop lots and oblivious banks (see previous post) further along Western Road is my favourite shop in Brighton, Taj the Grocers.

After all the sense of devastation, failure and pessimism, here is a shop that restores faith in happy day-to-day living. The food is cheap and looks good... I want to buy herbs and vegetables I have never seen before without knowing their names or how to cook them. Even the tin food looks... desirable. I have never once being tempted to visit the Waitrose opposite.

It is to fun to shop here - and 'fun' isn't a sentiment I often assocaite with shopping these days. The smells, the serendipity, the music, the staff's shy smiles remember me of an Asian souk.

So maybe we're not all doomed. At the risk of seeming a sentimental old orientalist, maybe we can pull ourselves from the current crisis in capitalism by looking along to the western end of Brighton's Western Road - to the east.